


Life Would Be Better With You

by angelsfalling16



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Confessions, Fluff, Getting Together, Light Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, SnowBaz, but what's new?, idiots to lovers, really simon is just obsessed with him, simon thinks baz is plotting, trapped together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:07:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24236242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelsfalling16/pseuds/angelsfalling16
Summary: Simon and Baz get trapped together in one of the hidden rooms in Watford, which forces them to work through some feelings that they have both been denying for years.
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Comments: 16
Kudos: 275





	Life Would Be Better With You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aralias](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aralias/gifts).



**Simon**

Baz is up to something. I’m certain of it.

First, he was gone for the first two months of school, refusing to give me any explanation for why that is. And now he’s creeping around the school, clearly planning to do something horrible.

I am apparently the only one who cares about what he might be up to, so I have taken it upon myself once again to follow him and try to figure out what it is and then stop him.

It’s been a few days now since I began tailing him, and it seems that he has caught on. We’re walking down an abandoned hall in the Weeping Tower, long after classes have ended for the day, and since he sneered at me to fuck off a few minutes ago, I have stopped trying to be sneaky. I am outright following him now.

“Go away, Snow,” he calls over his shoulder, but I keep forging on, walking faster so that I can catch up to him.

“You’re awful at this. Did you really think that I didn’t know you’ve been following me all week?”

“Why didn’t you stop me?”

“Because I know that you are too inept to figure anything out. I have been walking aimlessly up and down these halls for the past hour, and you still think that I’m ‘up to something’.” His tone is mocking, and I shouldn’t let him get to me, yet I do. I always do.

I’ve caught up to him now, and he is resolutely ignoring me.

I have had enough of this. I’m not getting anywhere by following him, so I need to make him tell me what he’s doing.

Reaching out and grabbing his arm, I manage to catch him off guard enough to turn him and slam him into the wall.

I only have a moment to take in his wide-eyed expression before we start falling.

The wall seems to open up behind Baz, revealing a doorway that wasn’t there before, and then we’re falling and stumbling backward as we try to keep from hitting the ground. I trip over someone’s foot – probably my own – and I end up crashing into Baz and knocking us both to the floor.

Baz groans as I land on him, and a moment later he’s shoving me off of him, hard. I scramble to my feet as he grumbles about the bruises that he’ll have from my elbows and how he’ll make me pay for that later.

I’m still ready to have it out with him, my hands itching to hit him as they form fists by my side, but I’m stopped when Baz stands and exclaims, “What the hell?!”

He’s staring at something behind me, so I turn to see what it is, careful to keep him in my line of vision in case this is a trick to catch me when my back is turned. What I don’t expect to see is that the wall has closed up again behind us, trapping us in this mysterious room.

Baz pushes past me, wand held out, and he immediately starts reciting a number of spells, obviously trying to get the wall to open back up.

Whispering the familiar incantation, I pull out my sword, not really sure if there is anything that I could do with it to help get us out of here. Baz’s spells don’t seem to be doing any good, so with a though of ‘why not?’, I swing my sword at the wall.

There are sparks, and it bounces off the wall, nearly hitting me as it rebounds.

“ _Shit_ , Snow. Put that thing away.”

“Why?” I ask, just to be contrary.

“Because it’s dark in here, and I don’t want you to accidentally maim me.”

“Who says it would be an accident?” I murmur, but I put my sword away anyway, more worried about accidentally harming myself than harming him.

Baz casts another spell, then murmurs, “This room shouldn’t be here.”

“Well, it is.”

“No, I mean that was an outer wall that we just fell through. We should have fallen to the ground.”

“Then, you should be glad that this room is here. It means that we aren’t dead.”

He turns to look at me long enough for me to see him glaring at me in annoyance. “Or I can be furious because you caused us to get trapped in here.”

“How did _I_ cause this? You’re the one walking around doing who knows what?”

“You slammed me into the wall, causing it to fall away. It is clearly your fault.”

“Would you like me to do it again? I could slam you into the wall, and we’ll see if it opens up again.”

“You will do no such thing.” His cheeks are tinged pink with fury now.

It was obviously the wrong thing to suggest, but it seems like a pretty reasonable idea to me.

“It worked the last time,” I say with a shrug.

“I’ve got enough bruises forming because of you. I don’t need any more.”

I roll my eyes and take a couple of steps away from him before plopping down on the ground and leaning against the wall. We obviously aren’t getting out of here anytime soon.

After a quiet moment that seems to stretch forever, Baz casts a spell to bring a ball of light into the room, shining light into the dark corners of this barren room that we’re in. He hesitates briefly before sliding down the wall and sitting gracefully beside me.

Looking around, I notice that the room looks like any of the other classes in the Tower. It’s just lacking in furniture and windows. And a door, of course. At least the floor is carpeted and not too uncomfortable to sit on.

Baz is right, though, however much it pains me to admit that. This room shouldn’t be here.

We sit in silence for a long time. It could be minutes, could be hours. It’s hard to tell. Baz occasionally throws out a spell at the wall or to renew the light spell when it starts to dim.

After a while, I hear Baz’s breathing getting shallow, and I can feel him practically vibrating beside me. He doesn’t seem to be taking well to this whole being trapped together thing.

“Baz?” I whisper.

“What, Snow?”

“Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” he snaps.

“No. You’re not. You’re shaking. And I-I think that you might be panicking.”

Baz stays silent, but his breathing is still quick. If he doesn’t find a way to calm down, he’ll hyperventilate.

“It’s okay,” I tell him, and I can feel the force of the glare that he turns on me, so I continue talking quickly. “I mean, it happens to me a lot. Like when I’m about to go off. You need to try to focus on your breathing. Take a deep breath in, then exhale slowly—.”

“I know how to breathe, Snow.”

Merlin, is he never not an arse? Even when I try to be nice to him, he snarks at me.

Why am I even helping him? What do I care if he hyperventilates?

“Really? Coulda fooled me,” I say.

Baz scowls, but I notice that he does as I said, taking deep breaths in and exhaling slowly as he stares at the blank wall across from us until his breathing is a little closer to normal.

We fall into another long silence until Baz surprises my by breaking it with, “I just don’t like being trapped in small, dark places.

“You practically live in the Catacombs.”

“I’m not trapped down there. I know my way out.”

“What about the last time we were stuck in a small room together? Back in fifth year?” I haven’t allowed myself to think about that day in years, but I know that he wasn’t frightened that day. Far from it, in fact.

“That was different.” It sounds like his voice shakes, but that has to be because of the claustrophobia thing, not because he’s thinking about anything that we did that day.

“How?” I ask.

“I knew we were going to be let out. For all I know, we’ll be stuck in this room until we die.”

“Can vampires die?” I muse aloud.

“Everything can die.”

“Ha! So, you admit that you’re a vampire,” I say excitedly.

“All I said was that everything dies,” he says in a bored tone.

I ignore him and ask, “Should I be worried that you’re going to get thirsty and suck my blood?”

“You should be worried that I’m going to hit you if you don’t shut up.”

“Do you seriously want to sit here in silence for who knows how long?”

“It’s better than listening to you talk.” He leans his head back and closes his eyes, apparently done with me.

I huff but don’t say anything more.

Unfortunately, with nothing else to focus on, I find myself thinking about that day in fifth year.

I didn’t even want to go to that party. Penny dragged me to it, insisting that I needed to stop obsessing over Baz, at least for an hour. I am certain that she never predicted that he would be there or what would happen between us that night.

I’m not sure who suggested the game or why Baz and I got sent into the closet together. All I know is that it seemed to be the magickal version of seven minutes in heaven. Two people would get sent in and spells would be cast to lock them in there and to make it so that no one could hear anything so that no one would be able to hear anything that you may or may not have done in there.

It seemed stupid, but when I saw Baz hand his wand over to Dev, I knew that I couldn’t be the one to back down, so I handed my wand to Penny and went into the closet with him.

Baz and I spent the first full minute in a stubborn silence. No one would know if we didn’t do anything. And I don’t think anyone would have cared.

I began to grow restless, though, and as I shifted around, I bumped into Baz.

“Could you be still?” He sneered.

“Make me,” I told him without really thinking about it.

Before I could register what was happening, Baz had slammed me into the wall, pinning my arms to the wall at my sides, and I remember letting out an embarrassing shriek of surprise.

“What are you doing?” I demanded, breathless for some reason.

“Making you be still.”

My eyes had begun to adjust to the darkness, and I could just barely make out Baz’s expression. I expected him to be sneering at me, like he was about to hit me, but his expression was one I had never seen before. I didn’t know what it meant, but I could smell the alcohol on his breath as it brushed across my face, making me very aware of how close we were.

I seemed to be the only person who wasn’t drinking at that party. I could only imagine what would have happened if I had decided to mix alcohol with my already unpredictable magic. It likely would be the biggest disaster that I had caused yet.

I was just thinking about pushing Baz away when he whispered, “It’s just a game.”

Then, he _kissed_ me.

I was so surprised that it took me a few moments to respond, and then I surprised myself by kissing him back.

His lips were soft and pliant, and I hummed as he parted his lips just slightly against mine.

I tilted my head, jutting out my chin, and kissed him deeper, cautiously delving my tongue into his mouth. I still wasn’t completely sure that this wasn’t some kind of trick. He could have planned this whole thing to get me locked in here and vulnerable so that he could finish me once and for all.

I might have actually believed that if he hadn’t willingly left his wand out there. It was a rule of the game, but I’m sure he would have protested if he wanted to.

So, I kept kissing him, and when he released my arms, I pushed one of my hands into his hair, mussing it up and feeling the sleek strands slip through my fingers.

His hands were gripping my hips before one of them pushed up under my shirt, resting on my waist, his hands refreshingly cool against my over-heated skin.

We broke apart for a moment to catch our breaths, and Baz smiled at me.

“I really like you, Simon” he whispered, and before I could respond or figure out whether he meant it or was trying to mess with me, he was kissing me again.

I moved my free hand to his side then over to his stomach, dipping my fingers between two of the buttons on his shirt, feeling the smooth skin and hardened muscles of his stomach.

He moved his body impossibly closer to mine, and I could feel him pressed against my leg. Curious, I reached my hand down to touch him through his trousers, evoking a beautiful groan from him.

“We only have seven minutes,” Baz said, sounding regretful.

I gave him a quick squeeze in response before moving my hand. He was right. We didn’t have time for that, even though I could feel my own body reacting to everything that he was doing, to all of the different sensations.

Too soon, we felt the spell that was keeping us in there fall away, and we only had a moment to break away and attempt to right ourselves before the door was yanked open.

Baz sneered at everyone who was standing outside of the closet, waiting for us to emerge, and even though to me, it seemed apparent what we were doing in there by the state of our appearance, I could hear people whispering about how we must have spent the entire time fighting in there.

They had no idea that what we did in there was so much better than fighting.

Baz pushed through the crowd and disappeared from the party before I could even think about following him. He didn’t return to our room that night, and when I tried to talk to him the next day, he pushed me down the stairs.

He continued to avoid me after that, pretending like nothing ever happened, and I’m not going to lie, that hurt a lot. It left a deep ache in my chest that I couldn’t tell anyone about. I couldn’t even tell Penny. I couldn’t admit to here that she was right, that I was obsessed with Baz

So, I dealt with the pain by myself, and when I started dating Agatha a little more than a month later, I decided that I was never going to think about those wonderful six minutes with Baz ever again.

Until now, apparently.

I can feel that ache in my chest again, but it isn’t as strong as it was in fifth year. I’ve gotten over it. Baz is going to treat me like shit no matter what I do or say, and I just have to deal with it, even if it means lying to everyone about my real feelings for him.

“You would have told me if there was a chance for us, right?” Baz asks quietly, breaking through the silence and my reverie.

“I—. What?” I ask, no idea what he’s talking about.

“We played that game, and I thought that maybe there was a chance you felt something but… But you never said anything.”

Apparently, he was thinking about the same thing I was. Though, I have no idea where this is coming from. He hates me, and he made that perfectly clear, back then and every day since then.

So, why does he care if I felt something for him?

I look over at him, but he’s still staring at the wall, so I can’t see his expression.

“I didn’t think it meant anything to you,” I say truthfully.

“I kissed you!” He exclaims, turning to look at me.

“It was a game! You actually said that, right before you kissed me.”

“And then I told you that I liked you.”

“And you were drunk,” I point out. “Plus, I did try to say something, the next day, but you were avoiding me. Then, you _pushed me down the stairs_.”

“That was an accident. A lucky punch.”

I shake my head at him. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter anymore. That was years ago.”

We’re quiet for a bit, but it doesn’t seem like Baz is ready to let this go yet.

“What would you have said?” He asks quietly, staring at the floor now, at the space between us.

“What?”

“You said that you tried to talk to me the next day. What would you have said if I hadn’t – if we hadn’t fought?”

“Why does it matter? It was a long time ago.”

“It matters to _me_.”

“Why? so you can have something else to make fun of me for?”

“No, I just—.” It’s his tone that gets to me. It almost sounds like he’s choked with emotion.

“Just what?” I ask, softer than I mean to.

Baz gets really quiet, and when he finally speaks, I barely hear him. “I need to know that we didn’t waste three years. I need to know that you liking me back was only a hopeless dream.”

I’m speechless. How do I respond to that? I had no idea that Baz had feelings for me. He never showed me. If I had known, I would have done things differently. I would have—. Well, I’m not really sure what I would have done back then, but I know what I want to do now.

I turn to him, scooting closer until our legs are nearly pressed against each other, and our faces our just a few inches apart.

I search his face for any sign that he may be lying, but for once, his expression is open and vulnerable. I can see his fear of being rejected.

“I would have said that I liked you, too,” I murmur.

Then, I kiss him.

I kiss him softly at first, but as he kisses me back fervently, I press my lips to his more firmly.

Unable to resist touching him and remembering how his body felt against mine in fifth year, I reach for him, tugging and pulling on him until he huffs out a laugh and climbs onto my lap, trapping my legs between his muscular, footballer ones.

I immediately pull him back into the kiss, tangling my hand in his hair and keeping him there.

I slide my tongue experimentally against his lips, and he parts them easily to allow me entrance.

I sigh into his mouth, wondering why we haven’t always been doing this. It feels so good, so right. Like this was my purpose in life.

Not saving the World of Mages or defeating the Humdrum. _This_.

I was born to kiss Baz, to hold him and love him. (Do I love him? That’s a question for another time.)

I break away from the kiss to kiss down his jaw to his neck, and I can’t help myself. I bite down on his neck, sucking the skin into my mouth, leaving a mark there. I smile to myself, thinking about how it’s just another bruise that Baz can blame me for.

Hopefully, he won’t be too mad about this one, though.

Baz’s hand tightens in my hair, pulling on it, and rather than it hurting, it feels almost good. I moan against his neck, and my hips involuntarily jerk up against his. It feels good, though. It feels _right_ , so I do it again.

“N-not now,” Baz gasps. “Not here.”

“O-okay,” I say, attempting to catch my breath and feeling a little dejected, wondering if I was wrong about what he wants.

He places his hand on my cheek and tilts my head up so that I’m looking at him, and his gaze is so soft, so gentle. He’s even smiling at me, and it warms my heart to have him look at me like that.

“I want our first time to mean something. I want it to be—.”

“Special?” I finish when he cuts himself off.

“Shut up.”

“No, it’s fine,” I say, grinning. “I get it.”

“You do?”

“Yes. Now, shut up and kiss me.”

We continue to kiss for a long time, switching between slow, gentle kisses and frenzied, hungry kisses, until our kisses turn lazy and sloppy as we fight to stay awake. Pulling my lips regretfully from his, I press my face against his neck and inhale deeply, smiling at the familiar scent of his posh soap.

“It looks like we’re going to be stuck here for the night,” I say, fighting to keep my eyes open.

“Yeah, we should probably get some sleep.”

“Mhmm,” I agree, yawning sleepily.

Baz drags himself off my lap, pressing a final kiss to my forehead, and spells some bedding for us before laying out a make-shift bed on the ground.

We spend the night sleeping in each other’s arms, and I’m pretty sure it’s the best that I’ve slept in months.

***

When we wake in the morning, the first thing that I notice is that the wall is open again.

Actually, the first thing I notice is the way that Baz’s body feels curved against mine. _Then_ , I notice the wall.

“Baz,” I whisper, shaking him lightly. I know he hates to get up early, and he hates it even more when someone tries to wake him, but I figure we might want to get out of here before the wall decides to close up again.

Baz seems to agree because a few beats later, after grumbling at me groggily, he’s jumping up and holding out a hand to me as he spells away our bedding, pulling me out of the room and down the stairs.

When we step outside, I welcome the feel of the autumnal wind as it rushes through my hair and clothes.

Baz says something about having something he needs to do, and I know he probably needs to feed (whether he will admit it or not), but I’m not about to let him get away this time.

“Wait,” I say, reaching for his hand to keep him from leaving.

“What?” He asks, and it’s weird to hear him ask that without sneering at me.

“What does this mean?”

“What do you want it to mean?” He asks, not even pretending not to know what I’m talking about.

“I want to be your boyfriend.”

“Okay.”

“But I’m a terrible boyfriend. I’ll likely muck this up and say the wrong thing or scare you away—.”

He interrupts me with a kiss, just a small thing, but enough to shut me up.

“Simon,” he says, and I smile at the sound of my name on his lips. “You won’t scare me a way. You’re a bloody nightmare, but I’ve still liked you for years. There’s not much that you could do at this point to scare me away.”

“So, you want to? Be boyfriends, I mean.”

He laughs lightly, pulling me into his arms.

“Yes. I want to be your terrible boyfriend.”

I pull him into one last kiss before letting him go. I’m happy, knowing that he will return to me this time.

Things have changed now, and I couldn’t be happier about it as I practically skip back to our room.

I know things won’t always be easy, but they will be better than they would have had we continued to fight all the time.

Things will be better with him.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! <3


End file.
